New Cup coaches of 2023: Elliott at Devils

Coaching history

Elliott moved into coaching after he finished playing rugby league in 2007. He first coached an under 19s team before becoming the North Queensland Cowboys under 20s assistant coach in 2009. He did this for three seasons and then joined Townsville Brothers as their A grade head coach in 2012.

In 2015, Elliott took on the role of assistant coach for the Townsville Blackhawks Cup side and then in 2019 became the Blackhawks' Hastings Deering Colts coach.

He did this for two years and then joined Mackay Cutters as Cup coach in 2022.

Q&A with Dave Elliott

How did you feel when you got the job as Norths Devils head coach?

It was mixed emotions because I was enjoying my time at the Cutters. It’s a great rugby league community with lots of support. It’s a well-run club and the playing group was on board with everything you did. I really enjoyed my time there but getting the opportunity at Norths, being a fulltime position, that was really important. When you’re doing the job part-time, it puts a lot of strain on you, particularly your home life, and something’s got to give somewhere. Coming back to a fulltime system was really good. It’s a great opportunity and family was the other big part of it. All my family is still here in the southeast corner and it feels surreal to just be able to catch up with my brother or sister on the weekend after being away for 15 years. Norths being the successful club they have been over the last few years in particular, the opportunity to come here and challenge myself in a different way was something I was looking forward to as well.

What is your coaching philosophy?

I’d have to say coming through as a development coach, it’s important to me to improve players. They have dreams and aspirations to go to the next level. We’re dealing with a quite a large age discrepancy at this level. You have guys coming straight out of Colts who are driven to play NRL and other guys who have played 150 Cup games. But it’s always about improvement. The other part that I try to implement with players is that a lot of what we do is player-driven. We get as much as we can out of the playing group – player-led video sessions, a player-led leadership group with Jack Ahearn, Kierran Moseley, Connor Broadhurst. They have an abundance of experience at that top end level. We try to use all their expertise as well as what we have here on our coaching staff.

Who would you say is your mentor or strongest influence in coaching?

I’ve probably never had too many mentors as such, but at the same time I've probably had plenty. I’m an advocate for learning as much as you can, wherever you can. So over a long period of time, there’s some guys I've done that with, Kristian (Woolf) being one as we certainly spent a lot of time together coaching. I took a lot from my time going in with (North Queensland Cowboys coach) Todd Payten and watching his sessions and learning from him and his coaching staff about the standard at NRL level. Back to the beginning, John Dixon in the early 2000s, he had a pretty profound impact on me as a younger coach, learning what coaching was about. Like any coach, there’s several people over a long period of time that help shape the way you want to coach and then you have to shape yourself. There’s no point in copying people. You need to have a good understanding of who you are and what you’re about.

What were your first impressions of Norths?

First impressions certainly are that everything you hear about Norths, everything that you hear and see when you're watching the players talk about the club, it is exactly that. It’s such a welcoming club, it’s a family club. That has certainly been one of the foundations of all their success that they’ve had over the last couple of years. That’s led from the top through the coaching staff and probably moreso the playing group. They’re such a good, level-headed playing group. They like giving back. For me, it’s certainly been everything that you want it to be.

What are your goals for season 2023?

We haven’t done that yet. We’ll sit down as a playing group and leadership group when we go away on our pre-season camp. Right now as a playing group, like every other playing group or squad, we’re getting the most we can out of our pre-season. Everyone’s working really hard and everyone’s trying to find an edge. But we’ve certainly got our own challenges. We’ve lost quite a number of our grand final team. Half of that team have left the club for different reasons. We’ve been lucky enough to get some guys return to Norths because they missed it that much and some new guys coming over to Norths. Just finding those combinations and building those connections within, we’re just continually working on that at the moment. We have a good opportunity in our trials to cement those things and look forward to Round 1 like every other team.

Who within your squad will make their mark in 2023?

Can I just say them all? But looking at the list now, I’d probably say Liam Horne. I’m really excited to see what he can bring. He’s been in at the Brisbane Broncos all pre-season and is still a young forward. He’s a Norths junior but being in there and learning from that environment, he should come back fitter than ever. They’ve been doing a lot of running in there. I’m really looking forward to seeing him and what he can provide. And I’ll also go with Jon Reuben. Jon’s one of those guys that when he wasn’t able to secure another NRL opportunity, he definitely wanted to come back to Norths. He’s very close with Jack Ahearn and really loves the club. He’s still so fast. He’s a metre and a half in front of everyone else. He’s a guy that can turn nothing into something. His instinct is second to none so we’re really looking forward to him being back in a Devils jersey and I’m sure he’ll be scoring plenty of tries again this year.